Just when you think that life is slowing down, magic happens. The universe sends you a message, like a tsvit paporot on your doorstep. The question i… - Valya Dudycz Lupescu

Back home, these lessons were taught in songs and stories passed along by grandmothers, wise women who held a cherished place in the circle of community. I thought someday to take my place among them. But the war had broken the cycle and torn millions of people away from the bosoms of their mothers. We were forever searching to recapture all that we had lost … connections to blood, to bones, to earth.
And connections resurface … refuse to be denied.

I would add to my mother’s wisdom that the key to love is in the breath. You know you love a man when you can stand his breath in the morning after a night of drinking and cigarettes. When you can kiss him after he finishes a garlic and butter sandwich and still enjoy the feel of his lips. When he looks into your eyes, tells you he loves you—and the pickled herring and onions are stronger than his voice—yet you still smile. You still want to be close to him. Yes, then you have found love. My Baba used to say that the breath is a taste of the spirit. When two spirits recognize each other in memory and future, then love grows.

Sometimes, if you stand very still in the shadows of those places, you can hear songs on the wind, whispers in the trees. That is why I travel.